let's start fires for heaven's sake
by QuietLittleVoices
Summary: "That's funny," Dean says, laughing humourlessly. "I never thought I'd live long enough to die of cancer." ((Dean/Cas))


**A/N: **I hate myself for writing this. The title's from 'Sinners' by Lauren Aquilina. I'm actually not sure of how good this is, so if you do read it despite the warnings I'd really appreciate feedback.

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It's a cold morning in December the first time he wakes up with a sharp pain in his side. Being Dean Winchester, he doesn't tell anyone. It's not a big deal; it didn't even hurt all that much, and it was gone by the time he got to breakfast. But the pattern continued into the New Year, and he still didn't tell anyone. He was getting up in years – nearly sixty! - and, he figured, it was to be expected. He'd never really known anyone over the age of fifty, anyway, so he didn't know what to expect when (if) he passed that point.

Cas is the first one to notice, when Dean flinches trying to reach something on a high shelf in the library. "Are you in pain?" he asks in his customary grave manner. Dean almost laughs; the dude's been human for almost twenty years and there's still something so obviously _not_ about him.

"It's nothing," Dean says dismissively, and Cas looks at him like he doesn't believe him, but he let's the point slide.

Cas will tell him later that January Thirteenth was the first day he passed out from pain in the living room, but to Dean the day was nothing special to start with. However, it would mark the first time he voluntarily stayed overnight at the hospital.

The worst part about it was that the doctor's wouldn't tell them anything, since they 'wanted to be sure'. Dean just wanted to grab one of them by the shoulders and shake them 'till the answers came loose.

"You're sure you don't want to call Sam?" Cas asked for what had to be the thousandth time, biting his nails – an annoying habit he'd picked up right after he fell, and one that they'd never managed to get him to shake – while he sat at Dean's bedside in the uncomfortable hospital chair.

Dean nodded. "No need to worry him. If this doesn't turn out to be anything, he doesn't need to know this happened at all."

And that's when the doctor, who's name neither Cas nor Dean could remember, walks in with a clipboard, looking grave. "Mister Winchester," he starts, looking at Dean pointedly, and he wants to tell the doctor to call him Dean, that 'Mister Winchester' makes him feel old, but something in the man's expression stops the comment before it passes his lips. "You appear to have stage four liver cancer."

"That's funny," Dean says, laughing humourlessly. "I never thought I'd live long enough to die of cancer."

They don't tell Sam, not right away. It's too fresh, too new; Dean can't deal with Sam's pitying looks on top of the one's Cas gives him when the fallen angel thinks he isn't looking.

"I'm not fucking fragile!" Dean yells one afternoon in the kitchen. "I'm not gonna let this _thing_ take over my life!"

Cas is silent as he walks towards Dean and takes the bowl he'd been holding out of his hands, placing it lightly on the table. Then he gently wraps his arms around the other man's middle, resting his head under Dean's chin. They stand there silently for a moment, Cas listening to Dean's heartbeat. "I know," he breathes. "I know."

They tell Sam a week after the official diagnosis. It's a night that he, his wife, and their two kids visit the bunker for supper, after they've eaten and the boys are 'catching up'.

"What's gotten in to you two?" Sam asks with a nervous laugh, when he sees that neither Dean nor Cas is touching their beer, and they're both silent.

Dean clears his throat awkwardly and looks at Cas, who just nods simply, and then turns back to his brother. "Like ripping off a bandaid," he mutters, then takes a deep breath. "I'm dying. Cancer. It's too late to treat."

And Sam looks like his whole world just came crashing down, torn up and in flames, but he doesn't cry. He simply stands up, puts his drink down, and hauls Dean to his feet so quick that the older brother braces himself for the punch he can almost feel landing on his jaw, but he's simply pulled into a nearly bone-crushing hug, and then they're both there clinging to each other for dear life.

Cas moves rooms to be closer to Dean's two weeks in. Dean notices but decides not to say anything. Until he wakes up in the middle of the night in pain, and sees Cas asleep in the chair in his room. But Cas isn't asleep for long, because Dean climbs out of bed and grabs him by the collar, pulling him up so they're standing toe-to-toe.

And Dean has a million things he wants to say, scream, yell until his lungs give out, but none of them come so they just stand their in silence, his hands tangled near Cas' throat, their chests pressed together, sharing breaths. And it would be so _easy_...

Dean stares at his hands and lets go with his right, sliding it up and along the mostly-smooth skin of Cas' throat until it covers all of one side. He pauses there, feeling the hitch in the other man's breath and the erratic pulse of his heart.

"Why?" he asks quietly, not wanting to break the stillness but _needing_ to know. He doesn't take his eyes off his hand, though they do skim across Cas' neck and collar bones.

Cas' adams apple bops as he swallows, uncomfortable. "I need to be sure you're still alive," he answers simply, voice wavering slightly.

And that's it. That's all Dean can take. He feels his knees buckle under him, but strong arms are there to hold him up, and he just ends up crushing his mouth against Cas'. It starts like that, crushing and desperate, with both of them wanting _more_, but it doesn't take long for it to change space, for biting teeth to be replaced by gentle lips as they take small steps to Dean's bed, falling back onto it.

Dean pulls Cas on top of him and is quickly, but gently, rolled over. He growls in response. "I'm not breakable, Cas."

Cas bites his lip and looks away. Swallows. "I know," he says, and his voice is thick. When he looks back, his blue eyes are shining. "I don't want to loose you. If you die..." his breath catches.

"When," Dean corrects quietly, leaning his head forwards and kissing Cas, slow and deep. "When I die, Cas. I'm human; it was never an 'if'." He laughs, but there's no joy in the noise. "At least now we know how much time's left on my ticker, eh?"

That earns him a glare. "Don't talk about it like that, Dean. It's nothing to joke about."

Dean reaches up a hand and cards his fingers through Cas' dark hair. "I know. But I'm doing what I have to."

Three weeks in and Dean takes a turn for the worse. He stays at the hospital for four days, and that's when he writes his will. He knows he's legally dead already, and a felon on top of that, but it's more for Sam and Cas' sake. So they know what he wants after he dies.

"I want a hunters funeral," he tells Cas during one of his few lucid moments during that week. "And I want you and Sammy to take my ashes to the Grand Canyon."

Cas scoots his chair closer to Dean's bed and reaches in, takes one of his hands between both of his own. "Why don't I just take _you_ there, as soon as they let you come home?" he asks quietly, hopefully.

When Dean laughs it's nearly hysterical; there's nothing funny about it. "Look at me, Cas. I'll barely be able to _walk_, let alone survive a car trip that long."

"Why not?" Cas asks, his voice suddenly more forceful. "One more long drive in the Impala. We'll go see the Grand Canyon, and anything else you want to on the way. Come on; I know you miss it." He's talking through tears, now, wiping them away angrily. "One last adventure."

Dean just shakes his head, reaches up and tries to dry Cas' tears. When he can't, he reaches with both hands, stretches the cords attached to him to their limit, and pulls the other man in, cradling his head against his shoulder and rubbing his back as he cries, almost silently, against him. "I can't, Cas. I wouldn't make it."

Cas tilts his head back and looks at him. "Couldn't you try?"

"I'd rather die silently at home."

"No you wouldn't!" Cas argues. "You're Dean Winchester; you've saved the world countless times. You can't just sit down and let Death take you!"

"Watch me."

The fourth week is the hardest. Though Dean is released from the hospital, he's thin and pale and can hardly leave his room, which has been turned into a makeshift hospital. There are beeping machines and everything set up around him, crowding his once coveted 'private place'. Cas sleeps curled up next to him in the bed, forever being careful of the things connected to him.

He's still weak and frail after a month, but Cas manages to convince him to go to Grand Canyon. They spend the fifth week on the road, making stops at everything that even slightly catches their eye and suffering the sideways glances that come with being so obviously sickly. Cas does most of the driving, with Dean sleeping in the back seat, but Dean takes the wheel for the home stretch. It's slow going, but they make it, and Cas helps Dean get as close as they could and they look out into the void.

"I can't believe I almost missed this," he breathes, and Cas just holds him tighter.

Dean dies on a Thursday, the sixth week, the day they get back to the bunker. Cas left the room to get himself lunch, not wanting to disturb Dean's rest, and when he returned the heart monitor had gone flat.

He doesn't cry. He calls Sam, who drives over so fast there's no way he didn't break every single road law ever set into place, and he leads Sam to Dean's room before leaving, catching the beginning of Sam's grieving as he shuts the door. Cas leans back against the wall and slides down, placing his head in his hands, and that's when he starts crying, full body sobs, racking his already weary frame.

That's where Sam finds him an hour later, when he leaves the room and sits down next to Cas, putting his arm around the fallen angel.

They waste no time in giving Dean the hunter's funeral he asked for, and his body is ash by the time the sun goes down that night.


End file.
